1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a technology for registering a text of a first language in association with a text representing a translation of the text of the first language into a second language as dictionary information.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a dictionary used for performing a machine translation, an original word in an original language and a word in the other language into which the original word is translated are registered by associating with each other. When the machine translation is performed, a sentence to be translated through the machine translation often includes words that have not been registered on the dictionary.
In this case, a user is required to register the unregistered word in the original language and a new word in the other language corresponding to the unregistered word, by associating with each other, for performing the machine translation using the dictionary. Namely, the user needs to know the new word for registering the new word on the dictionary. However, the user often does not know the new word.
A technology for converting the word in the original language into a new word in the other language by converting a pronunciation of the word in the original language into an expression in another language has been developed. For example, for registering a new word in a dictionary in which Japanese words and English words are associated with one another, a pronunciation of the Japanese word is expressed in Roman character, and then, the expression in Roman character is used as the English word.
Furthermore, JP-A 2002-32369 (KOKAI) discloses a technology for automatically generating a new word in another language corresponding to the word in the original language, by combining the expression with which the pronunciation of the word in the original language is expressed in the other language with a functional word corresponding to a part of speech of the word.
It is, however, difficult for a user who uses the other language and who does not know the original language to understand the meaning of the new word generated by expressing the pronunciation of the original word using the other language, or by combining the expression with which the pronunciation of the original word is expressed in the other language with the functional word.